I flopped the nuts!

I’m getting a little goofy from playing so tight lately.

When you play 15-20% of your hands, it can happen that you don’t see anything for two or three orbits.  The thing to do there is to just hang tight.  It ends eventually.

It ended for me with pocket aces.  I raised 3BB from UTG+1 and got two callers.  My heart started racing, because duuuude.  Aces.  The flop was 9-9-7.  Nothing good, but nothing bad.  Check.  Check.  I make a pot sized bet.  Fold.  Fold.  That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, but at least I didn’t get hurt.

I can’t figure out why I was so excited to see AA, though.  It just came at the end of a long folding streak, and it gave me a weird feeling.

Every Friday I’d like to paste one of my hand histories and talk about what I was thinking.  This one’s been stuck in my head since I played it, because I think I played it well, but I lost a ton of money.  (For me, on my bankroll.  It’s actually the cheapest cash game they offer.)

(And for those of you not in the know, the ring games are the exact same at Empire and Party.  I don’t mean they are similar: I mean that when you sit at table 12345, there are the same people whether you’re logged in at Empire or Party or any of the other skins.)

Let me set up the hand: I am SB, but one hand ago, I was the BB, and we went head-to-head, with him attacking me with a bunch of little raises which I just called.  He showed 72o and I scooped the pot, while remarking on his inventive play with a crap hand.  So I assume he’s mad at me.

***** Hand History for Game 2248400202 *****
$25 NL Hold’em - Wednesday, June 22, 22:10:24 EDT 2005
Table Table  37379 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 1: nolimitguy ( $26.13 )
Seat 3: riverrafter4 ( $19.05 )
Seat 5: DumbManiac ( $15.7 )
Seat 7: HDDriver ( $28.75 )
Seat 9: Papa_Z ( $10.3 )
Seat 2: dnord520 ( $27.6 )
Seat 10: buckarue ( $30.75 )
Seat 6: Leon768 ( $24.4 )
dnord520 posts small blind [$0.1].
riverrafter4 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to dnord520 [  Jh Jd ]
DumbManiac calls [$0.25].
nolimitguy: nh
jeraf452 has joined the table.
Leon768 folds.
HDDriver folds.
Papa_Z folds.
buckarue folds.
nolimitguy calls [$0.25].
dnord520 calls [$0.15].
riverrafter4 checks.

So okay, so here we go again.  The table decides they’d rather watch The Blinds Scrap, except I actually have a hand.  No need to push it, though… it’s not a pair of aces, and we want to get paid if we flop a set.

** Dealing Flop ** [ Jc, 3d, 8d ]

I nailed it!  Not just the set, but top set.  I’m not worried about AA or KK at this point.  The only bad news: our flop is slightly flushy.  Let’s take care of that with a bet of three times the pot. 

dnord520 bets [$3].
riverrafter4 folds.
DumbManiac folds.
nolimitguy calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]

Draws are mostly gone at this point.  There could still be a nut with a flush draw, so let’s fire the same bet.  (This is extremely aggressive for a Party/Empire table, I think.)

dnord520 bets [$3].
nolimitguy calls [$3].
** Dealing River ** [ 7h ]

At this point I’m almost 100% that I’m dealing with overpairs, and I beat overpairs.  I’m still beating every other set out there.  Even if I’m dealing with AKs, the flushes don’t exist anymore.  This pot is mine, and we might as well get paid by the guy tilting because he’s ticked about getting looked up on last hand’s 72o bluff. 

dnord520 bets [$5].
nolimitguy is all-In.

I check the board.  What’s he doing?  Betting $20 to buy a $20 pot, and… I have the nuts, right?  I check again.  There’s nothing on the board that beats me, so…

dnord520 calls [$14.88].
dnord520 shows [ Jh, Jd ] three of a kind, jacks.
nolimitguy shows [ 9c, Th ] a straight, seven to jack.
nolimitguy wins $50.16 from  the main pot  with a straight, seven to jack.

So, with that done, let’s see where my mistakes were:

1. Before the hand even started: I’d heard that Party / Empire tables were looser and and fishier than PokerStars.  Well, even after watching this table for a while, the VP$IP was less than 30%, and I still decided I could play rock and scoop pots occasionally.  But I really wasn’t comfortable at the .10/.25 level, where $25 buy-ins can vanish just like that.  I was playing a little nervous, which probably led to:
2. Preflop: many experts would say that, if the pot is worth entering, it’s worth raising into.  I had reasons for limping (not real proud of JJ, wanted to be able to bail on a flop with anything larger, had just picked up some chips earlier, wasn’t really thinking, etc.), but in all honesty, he probably would have laid down T9o for a minimal raise.  In the SB, you’re in the earliest position, and almost nothing good is going to happen when you’re the first to act after every card.  You don’t want to play this hand, you want to win it before the flop comes.  But I was thinking "what’s the worst that could happen?"
3. Flop: If I really want to get paid with top set, I should probably not pull out the cannon and bet three times the pot.  Pot-size raises clear the draws in almost every case: I was giving my opponents 4:3 odds, less than they’d need for any straight or flush.  It doesn’t mean they won’t call it (obviously), but it’s not smart long-term for them to do so.
4. Turn: with the pot $7, and my opponent with eight outs, a $3 bet is too small.  He’s getting 10:3 all the sudden, and while it’s still not enough to pay a 4:1 draw, he’s shown he doesn’t card about it.  Besides, I put him on a two-out draw like AA or KK, and just not having the nerve to lay it down.  So I was just sweetening the pot, I guess.
5. River: I honestly didn’t see the straight.  I need to get better at this: I looked twice.  If I had, would I have believed that he’d been holding T9o the whole time?  Probably not.  But I might have checked to him, just to show that I recognized the scare card, and he might not have gone all-in if I wasn’t guns-blazing for the fourth round in a row.

Five playing errors?  A bargain at $5 apiece. 

I’m struggling with a question: what to do with limpers.  I play on the cheapest tables around, since I’m still learning, but it seems like the level of play in that game invalidates a certain amount of advice you might rely on at a more serious table.

Late position is where you should be playing most of your hands (not that you’ll play 50% of what you’re dealt there, but that’s where you’ll be most of the time when you’re playing).  I’m getting frustrated thinking that I’ve got a great hand for raising, and then find that four people ahead of me are limping.  Again.  Their limps turn your KJs–a great blind-stealing hand–into an underdog trying to bluff half the table.

I think most advice you’ll get says: scare these guys off with a raise if you have cards or take the nearly-cheap ride if your cards are marginal.  Tight aggressive, right?  With an eye towards pot odds.  But with that kind of money already in the pot, everyone’s getting pot odds to call, so they can’t fold.  So you can’t shake them.  And four limpers holding crap will beat you, no matter what you have.  Most of the time, the flop will miss you, and it’s just math: with that many hands, what doesn’t help you helps them.

People say there’s no such thing as "too loose" in an opponent.  I
think sometimes there is, especially if you’re just trying to practice
your TA-A game.  If they don’t respect your aggressive play, there’s no point.  Here are the options as I see them:

1. Limp and cut if you miss.  You had the pot odds and position to call, and when you miss, you’re out one BB.  Don’t make it worse by making something happen.
2. If it keeps happening, move on (to a different table) or move up (to a higher level, where the raises are respected a little more).
3. Treat .01/.02 like .05/.10.  Throw out the advice about 2BB or 3BB raises and start raising 10BB if you’re going to play at all.  That’s something this kind of table understands: if their stupidity is sufficient to call your monster raises with poor holdings, tune the raise to get the result you want.  It’s not changing your game to suit lesser players, it’s… well, okay, it is.  Also dangerous.  But at least you have to ask yourself why you were thinking raise to begin with.
4. Never, ever bluff at this level.  You want to make something happen with that AQs in your hand, but he already made something happen with his 74o.  He knows where he stands, you don’t, you don’t have the outs, you’re throwing money away.
5. Patience.  He’ll still have your money in fifteen minutes when you actually do hit with a decent hand, and he won’t know to be scared enough to fold.

If you’re planning on writing a poker book anytime soon, please correct your habit of referring to "strong" and "weak" players.  It’s a lazy shorthand for something you could be expressing more distinctly.  Are you referring to an aggressive / passive player?  Or a tight / loose player?  A winning / losing player?  A fresh / seasoned player?

For the most part, I think most authors / writers are referring to the passive / agressive axis.  At the same time, don’t confuse a pushover with someone who simply plays too many hands.  The cards held by an extremely loose player may frequently be poor, but that doesn’t mean that he’s a better or worse player.

And, when you look across the table and see a 15% VP$IP limping in, that doesn’t mean that he won’t fold to a raise.  Whether or not he does won’t make him weak or strong, just playing a different balance (perhaps poorly chosen) of poker. 

Okay, I admit it: I have an awful attitude about satellites.

I think it started back at some crap site where they’d have a $5+0 single table satellite to a $50+5 tournament, and give away one seat.  That’s crap.  I understand the idea: give lower-stakes players a shot at the higher-stakes tournaments.  But if you just cough up the money in a regular 50/30/20 fashion, the winners can decide for themselves if they want to play in a higher stakes tournament, can’t they?

Party Poker’s new step system is the worst.  Obviously, the only point of playing satellites is to win two (or three, or more) tournaments in a row, and Party wants to lock you into a four-long chain of tougher and tougher tournaments before you see any money.  And even then, it’s less money than you’d expect, because losers don’t lose, they win seats at lower levels.  Come on!

This kind of business takes choice away from players.  If you want to take what you win at a $10+1 and go to a $50+5, then you can do that.  Having that chosen for you the house is a trap.

Thanks for visiting the new weblog.  I appreciate it.

I’ve been playing Hold ‘Em online for about three months now.  I guess I missed the great wave of online players in 2003 and 2004, when the game started getting wildly popular, but I really hope we’re not at the end of a fad.

I’ve been playing poker my whole life.  I grew up in a house where we played a lot of cards, including penny blackjack, poker, and other games.  My dad was taking me to the horse track when I was ten.  I guess I can blame my parents for my fascination with gambling and games.

I’ve been writing online in various forms since 1994, and blogging since 1999. 

I have lots of reasons to start this blog.

1. We write what we know, and know what we write.  On the shifting sands of high-speed internet gambling (especially with a dangerous game like No Limit Hold ‘Em), it’s tough to remember what you know.  My experiences and advice posted here should help me focus on the truths of poker and keep my course clear.
2. I’m interested in what sponsorship opportunities there are for a well-written, poker-focused weblog.
3. Gaming’s supposed to be a social activity, right?  A lot of poker bloggers seem like nice people, but you don’t seem to run into to many nice people on the tables.  Let’s start the conversation away from the tables, then. 
4. I probably play too much.  (Ask my wife.)  If I can split up my time between playing and writing/reflecting/learning, then I’ll be better off.

Thanks again for stopping by.